- 25 Apr 2013 01:49
#14221178
The Front of Affront is basically the super slippery slope theory of sociology. So this is how it works:
On an Individual level there are minor things like irony or sarcasm which demonstrate a tendency toward the wry. In a minor way humor can be perverse, it can also be dark, it can also be taken seriously, it can also be quite serious.
There are more significant things that go by this pattern. First the usual things become tedious and boring so people look for adventure and novelty, and this search for newness itself produces novel methods such as shocking behavior, grossing oneself and others out. This, you may admit can be funny. Youtube and 4chan are both famous for providing spectators with terrible visions, especially of the human body.
Talking about sex, well it comes with it's own facets of grossness, so much so that one can glory in the grossness of it - and that can be funny, maybe even healthy. For sure the eye full of desire has a very different way of seeing than the dispassionate eye. But again, eventually anything can get boring. People start to look at new ways of doing things - wry ways and deliberately gross ways.
And then there is something called contrariness. Everyone probably knows someone who is quite contrary, that is, it doesn't matter what you say, they disagree. Not just disagree but do things in strange impractical ways just to be different. In the film Little Big Man (with Dustin Hoffman) there is an Indian who rides his horse mounted backwards, they call him a 'Contrarian' - this is the only example I know of in which the idea is put forth as a principle, that is, someone who is contrary in principle.
Now things get a little serious though, and this I would call a theory about the sum of traditionalist fears.
So the idea is that homosexuality is perverse. What this means is that it is done in order to be shocking, for a number of reasons. Probably the most prominent is what the french call frisson ('friction' but in a positive way) about love, it is that there are sparks. When love making gets normal it might lose something hungry about it, lose the passion. So people look farther, not just into new techniques, but to taboo, to obsession, to creative things that set them apart, shock the senses, bring a lively danger to it etc. All of which goes against the grain of single partnership and graceful acceptance of waning passions as we age, but let's say at the individual level and to a moderate degree it's not a big deal.
Put this all together and you have contrarian politics and general perversity. In other words people doing things that are not just wrong - let's say wrong in the sense that if everyone did them social organizing would be impossible - or wrong in the way of being revolting, disturbing, bizarre etc - not only doing these things, but doing these things because they are wrong, and actively looking for ways to be even more wrong, and promoting this way.
Here is something I think is odd, and this is why I bring all of this up, it seems that is some cases me and Donald agree, like perhaps we both see something that's happening, even if we disagree on whether or not it is a good sign.
Gay marriage. Well. If homosexuality is perverse and therefore exciting. Gay marriage is how you would go about making it boring. Accepting it, making it not taboo, linking it to possessive instincts etc. If it's normal it's no longer special.
Now suppose you do this generation after generation. So today gay marriage is made boring, those people who really must prove their specialness, contrariness, or those people who really can't be aroused to laughter or strong feeling without something outrageous happening - those people who feel like they really need to make something dramatic happen. Well now that gay marriage is normal and gay sex just another way of stultifying the senses and consolidating boredom, whatever will we do to be special and shocking?
So what appears over long periods is a kind of wavefront of perversity, the front of affront. Like a marching battle line pushing ever farther into the territory of the absurd and revolting.
I do not find traditionalist fears on this count absurd, despite the many objections to the effect that for instance homosexuality doesn't have anything to do with bestiality, if you consolidate the impractical you don't put increasing impracticality farther out - it becomes much closer.
If what people want is just more of course, there is no supply big enough to ever feed that sort of mouth. If what people want is perverse, that moves, along with being special. The criteria changes as the criteria is met.
I don't want this to be taken for a rant against immorality, but this is the theory as I understand it. It doesn't seem ridiculous, maybe it's not very serious, maybe there are real limits to how large a proportion of any society can actually wish to push things, for sure if everyone were bizarrely dependent on getting a dramatic response from others it would be impractical to continue thinking of society as organized. Shocking behavior gets more difficult, on the other hand it could be quite serious, it may even be the case that this can be linked to increasing bombings and shootings.
On an Individual level there are minor things like irony or sarcasm which demonstrate a tendency toward the wry. In a minor way humor can be perverse, it can also be dark, it can also be taken seriously, it can also be quite serious.
There are more significant things that go by this pattern. First the usual things become tedious and boring so people look for adventure and novelty, and this search for newness itself produces novel methods such as shocking behavior, grossing oneself and others out. This, you may admit can be funny. Youtube and 4chan are both famous for providing spectators with terrible visions, especially of the human body.
Talking about sex, well it comes with it's own facets of grossness, so much so that one can glory in the grossness of it - and that can be funny, maybe even healthy. For sure the eye full of desire has a very different way of seeing than the dispassionate eye. But again, eventually anything can get boring. People start to look at new ways of doing things - wry ways and deliberately gross ways.
And then there is something called contrariness. Everyone probably knows someone who is quite contrary, that is, it doesn't matter what you say, they disagree. Not just disagree but do things in strange impractical ways just to be different. In the film Little Big Man (with Dustin Hoffman) there is an Indian who rides his horse mounted backwards, they call him a 'Contrarian' - this is the only example I know of in which the idea is put forth as a principle, that is, someone who is contrary in principle.
Now things get a little serious though, and this I would call a theory about the sum of traditionalist fears.
So the idea is that homosexuality is perverse. What this means is that it is done in order to be shocking, for a number of reasons. Probably the most prominent is what the french call frisson ('friction' but in a positive way) about love, it is that there are sparks. When love making gets normal it might lose something hungry about it, lose the passion. So people look farther, not just into new techniques, but to taboo, to obsession, to creative things that set them apart, shock the senses, bring a lively danger to it etc. All of which goes against the grain of single partnership and graceful acceptance of waning passions as we age, but let's say at the individual level and to a moderate degree it's not a big deal.
Put this all together and you have contrarian politics and general perversity. In other words people doing things that are not just wrong - let's say wrong in the sense that if everyone did them social organizing would be impossible - or wrong in the way of being revolting, disturbing, bizarre etc - not only doing these things, but doing these things because they are wrong, and actively looking for ways to be even more wrong, and promoting this way.
Here is something I think is odd, and this is why I bring all of this up, it seems that is some cases me and Donald agree, like perhaps we both see something that's happening, even if we disagree on whether or not it is a good sign.
Gay marriage. Well. If homosexuality is perverse and therefore exciting. Gay marriage is how you would go about making it boring. Accepting it, making it not taboo, linking it to possessive instincts etc. If it's normal it's no longer special.
Now suppose you do this generation after generation. So today gay marriage is made boring, those people who really must prove their specialness, contrariness, or those people who really can't be aroused to laughter or strong feeling without something outrageous happening - those people who feel like they really need to make something dramatic happen. Well now that gay marriage is normal and gay sex just another way of stultifying the senses and consolidating boredom, whatever will we do to be special and shocking?
So what appears over long periods is a kind of wavefront of perversity, the front of affront. Like a marching battle line pushing ever farther into the territory of the absurd and revolting.
I do not find traditionalist fears on this count absurd, despite the many objections to the effect that for instance homosexuality doesn't have anything to do with bestiality, if you consolidate the impractical you don't put increasing impracticality farther out - it becomes much closer.
If what people want is just more of course, there is no supply big enough to ever feed that sort of mouth. If what people want is perverse, that moves, along with being special. The criteria changes as the criteria is met.
I don't want this to be taken for a rant against immorality, but this is the theory as I understand it. It doesn't seem ridiculous, maybe it's not very serious, maybe there are real limits to how large a proportion of any society can actually wish to push things, for sure if everyone were bizarrely dependent on getting a dramatic response from others it would be impractical to continue thinking of society as organized. Shocking behavior gets more difficult, on the other hand it could be quite serious, it may even be the case that this can be linked to increasing bombings and shootings.
.
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Wild geese flying over a lake don't intend to cast a reflection
and the water has no mind to retain their image
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Wild geese flying over a lake don't intend to cast a reflection
and the water has no mind to retain their image
- By QatzelOk
- By Doug64
- By JohnRawls